Cancelled trains, lack of seats and fewer peak time services were just some of the concerns raised at a meeting of Hertfordshire County Council on Tuesday (May 22).

Councillors want MPs and train operators to recognise that “the rail industry is failing to look after the interests of Hertfordshire residents and businesses” amid ongoing changes.

At an ‘extraordinary meeting’ of the council on Tuesday – as the chaos surrounding timetable changes continued – they passed a motion highlighting some of the issues.

“The county council is deeply concerned the rail industry is failing to look after the interests of Hertfordshire residents and businesses in the implementation of the Thameslink programme and the Rail Plan 20/20, ” the motion begins.

It notes that the council supports continuing engagement with the rail industry, the Department for Transport and local MPs to ensure the interests of Hertfordshire residents remain paramount.

According to Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Rail Plan 20/20 is the biggest transformation of the UK rail network in decades.

The company says that the changes – which include an additional 400 trains a day – will create additional space for 40,000 more passengers into London at peak times and mean simpler and more reliable journeys.

But councillors say the implementation of the Thameslink programme and Rail Plan 20/20 is actually having a negative impact in Hertfordshire and highlights the current disruption caused by the “failure” to properly plan the introduction of new timetables.

Introducing the motion Cllr Derrick Ashley, who is responsible for environment, planning and transport, said: “Its our responsibility to represent the needs of the travelling public.

“This recommendation is to highlight what I think are the key issues of concern in Hertfordshire, particularly for people using the Thameslink and GTR networks.”

Labour councillor Judi Billing said commuting had become “considerably worse”.

“I used to be a daily train commuter to London,” said Cllr Billing. “Sometimes I have to travel there in rush hour – and I am immensely grateful that I only do it on an occasional basis. It has clearly got considerably worse over the last several years.”

Councillors highlighted the high number of cancelled and delayed trains that had been recorded this week.

Cllr Teresa Heritage said some families were having to change the way they worked because the train services no longer matched their childcare arrangements.

Liberal Democrat councillor Steve Jarvis said rail provision was about more than the number of trains.

He said: “They claim to be providing additional services, but they are not providing additional services at times their customers want them.

“The need is to provide trains with sufficient capacity at times when people need to travel. That’s what they have failed to do. They have failed to understand the needs of the people who use their service.

"Now, to make matters even worse, Govia have failed to introduce the new timetable properly and are cancelling large numbers of trains every day. Some reports suggest that they knew several months ago that they would not be able to introduce the new services as planned, but they are apparently still unable to tell passengers which trains will run the next day.

"Hopefully those running our railways so poorly will take some notice when the County Council adds its voice to those of thousands of commuters and other travellers."

A Govia Thameslink Railway spokesperson said: "Our new May timetable is based on careful analysis and consultation. Once fully implemented it will meet passenger needs by targeting capacity where it's most needed. On Thameslink trains arriving at St Pancras from the Bedford route each morning peak it creates space for over 18,500 more passengers, which includes over 3,800 more standard class seats. From the East Coast Mainline, it creates space for 17,000 more passengers into London and a similar number of extra standard class seats.

"The timetable presents a significant logistical challenge as we make rolling incremental changes across more than 3,000 daily services. It is the biggest change to rail timetables in a generation and, as we have been informing passengers, we expect some disruption to services in the initial stages.”